


When We Meet Again

by elyzaclexa (nutalexfanfic)



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, angsty lexa, insecure lexa, no dead lesbians, stray bullet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-07-11 07:52:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7039408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nutalexfanfic/pseuds/elyzaclexa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From these prompts (in no particular order):</p><p>1. Can you do one where, Clarke leaves saying that they will for sure meet again and she'll have something more important to tell Lexa then. They take down Pike and all is well they are the 13th clan etc. when Clarke comes back to Polis she brings her friends and Lexa interprets that as Clarke needed her friends to feel okay in Polis, and this Clarke doesn't want to be there at all and with her?</p><p>2. Lexa getting injured saving Clarke and Clarke worrying about Lexa. </p><p>3. This may be a little weird but could you possibly do a one shot where Clarke has fully forgiven Lexa and starting their relationship, but Lexa feels like she doesn't deserve it, that Clarke deserves better, and is hesitant to touch Clarke or do anything, cause she feels guilty?</p><p>4. Clarke and Lexa have finally gotten peace among the Clans but Lexa seems distant until finally Lexa tells Clarke. Line for reference= "I'm a monster Clarke"</p><p>5. When Lexa doesn't feel she is good enough for Clarke. Clarke totally disagrees and tries to convince Lexa that she's definitely good enough, she's better than enough (Canon)</p>
            </blockquote>





	When We Meet Again

 

She’s breathtaking. Gorgeous and etherial, blending into the golden light of the morning, skin aglow, radiant. She’s all soft curves and gentle smiles, sparkling blue eyes and quiet laughter. Lexa aches in her beauty, her hands desperately reaching, body pressing in earnest, lips searching, asking, begging. 

They’re melding together in soft cries and heavy breathing, atoms colliding together, finally seeing each other in the tears that wet their eyes and fall to bare chests. Lexa is bursting, warmth and happiness spilling out of her with such ferocity it leaves her shaking, keening, panting. _Clarke, Clarke, Clarke._

 _“_ Clarke, I–” 

Clarke’s fingers are on her lips, soothing, promising, understanding. “Not yet. Not like this. When we meet again.” 

She’s holding Clarke, arms wrapped around her tightly, trembling with the pain of letting her go. She doesn’t want to let her go. She doesn’t– She leans in, wanting Clarke’s lips and they’re so close. She’s so close, she can feel the heat radiating off of her face. They’re inches away when light pours in from the window beside them. White light that cascades between them, melting into Clarke, encapsulating her into a beam of fading colors until Lexa can just make out her outline as she slips away. 

She reaches for her, stumbling, fingers slipping on emptiness, _no,_ as Clarke fades, _no, no, no_ , she rushes forward, arms outstretched, searching, _no,_ slicing through nothingness–

 

 

* * *

 

 

“NO!” 

Lexa jolts upright as her tent flaps fly open, the panicked faces of her two guards greeting her as she blinks past stale tears that must’ve fallen in her sleep. She presses her fingers to her eyes and shudders out a sigh full of everything and nothing. 

Her chest hurts from where her heart had thudded violently against it, but by the time her guards have taken two steps towards her, questions on their faces, she is poised, back iron straight, eyes clear, face hard. 

“Ban op,” she commands, avoiding the eyes she knows are filled with pity. She’d seen it the first time, how the alarm had slipped into sympathy, pathetic sympathy, when they’d realized their Heda was plagued by nightmares again.

They leave without having to be told twice, but not without sharing a glance with each other that makes Lexa storm out of bed, barred teeth just about the only thing keeping her from screaming. That, and the exhaustion. An exhaustion that no sleep will ease. An exhaustion that has settled in the hallows of her bones, weighing her down so that every step feels too heavy, too infuriating.

She takes her time with her war paint, fingers numbly brushing across her cheek bones, around her brow. She slams here eyes shut when the touch feels too familiar, to much like the caress that plagues her sleep and enlivens her dreams. She mutters to herself, words of the past commanders, prayers of strength, but in the chill of the morning, they’re for her soul, not her warrior. 

Calls of her name, her title, rouse her from her seat and she berates herself when she pauses, a fleeting piece of her questioning whether she will go at all. She doesn’t want to walk outside. Doesn’t want to see the hundreds of blood thirsty warriors, _her_ warriors who she has cultivated and encouraged to be ruthless for so long it is all they know, who wait to decimate Arkadia on her command. Because she knows, despite her desire for peace, despite her desire to leave a legacy, a new way of life, she knows that if she is forced to choose war, she will do so, without hesitation. It is her duty and she is Heda, commander of the blood, and the blood is already thick on her hands. 

Her footsteps are swift and commanding as her boots slog over the rain drenched ground. The droplets are cold around the crown of her face, but she doesn’t raise her cape. She does not want to hide, not from this. _This_ is who she was born to be. Commander. Warrior. Destroyer. Alone with the thoughts that torture her mind. 

She surveys Arkadia from the tree line, listening with half an ear to her general who updates her on movements within the high, metal walls. She tunes out when she hears that Pike has not been disposed of, her eyes now searching for something she knows she will not see. A flash of blonde, a pop of blue. Something, anything. 

“Heda?” 

She turns, her eyes unfocused until she blinks and hones in on the man who awaits an answer. She stares at him, long and hard, trying to read his desires. Trying to discern his leaning–eyes zealous if blood, reluctant if peace. She searches, jaw working, chin lifting. He reveals nothing but questions. He is loyal, quiet and patient. She wishes she saw fury in his eyes, wishes the vengeance was erupting out of him, sparking off of him, nothing but her orders restraining him from leading her army to lay waste to the sky people. Perhaps then, she could feed off of him. Gather the blind rage she would need to pillage the camp. 

She turns back to it, its high walls and interior mockingly silent and still. 

“They still have some time. We will be true to our word. Settle the warriors, we will reconvene at sun down.” 

“Sha, Heda,” He bows to her, and she wants to reach out, grab him, shake him, wants him to fight her decision, to question her weakness. _Tell me what to do,_  her body wants to scream. 

 

//

 

Clarke doesn’t feel their eyes on her. She’s too busy pacing, fingers knotted at her stomach, brow furrowed. She’s weighing, calculating, hoping that she is not walking her people into a death trap. 

“Clarke.” 

She turns to Bellamy and stares hard at him, unseeing, her mind still deep in thought. 

“Octavia is right,” Kane adds, “how do we know that we can trust Lexa?” 

Clarke feels her chest constrict, and she knows she shouldn’t be angry, but she feels a wave of heat rush through her anyways. It’s more frustration than anything. “We can trust her. Lexa wants peace just as much as we do. We give her Pike, and we have our peace.” 

Octavia rolls her eyes and stands roughly. “The last time you told us to trust someone, we got left in a mountain, Clarke. And that someone is the same person you’re asking us to trust now? You’re crazy if you think I’m gonna let this rest in _her_ hands. Besides, what if we can’t get Pike outside? What if he suspects something?  What then? We should just take him here, now.”

“I can get him out. He trusts me.” When Clarke turns to Bellamy, he nods. She believes him, needs to, so she nods back and steels her decision. 

“Get Pike. Tell him the commander allowed me to return so that I could deliver a message.” 

“What message?”

Clarke looks to her mother, to Kane and to Octavia who watches her with wary, angry eyes as she stalks back and forth.  

“The commander would like to negotiate a peace agreement.” 

“Pike will never agree to being the thirteenth clan. He already made that clear,” Octavia snaps. 

Clarke shakes her head, eyes still glued to Bellamy. “Tell him Skaikru can remain independent, outside of the coalition. She does not want anymore of her people to die, and knows that he wants the same.”

Bellamy sighs. “If we do this, the commander has one shot. Are you sure she’ll know to take it?” 

Clarke swallows. “She has to.”

 

//

 

Lexa can feel their energy. Restless, ferocious, relentless. The blockade comes alive, a ring in constant, minute motion. The shifting of feet, clutching of swords, grunts and clouds puff out of their mouths brutally.

She bores into their backs, her eye unflinching except to cast a glance to the warriors who stand with her in the tree-line. _Settle_ she tells them with her rigid shoulders and harsh jaw, quiet but determined. _Settle._

Their eyes wander to her sometimes before darting away. In those moments, it’s as if she feels their collective mind descend upon her, seeping into her thoughts, her stillness. In those moments, her insides flip and contort until she has to take a walk down her ranks, sometimes dipping unseen into the tree-line, sometimes facing the warriors with quick reassurances.

They look at her with admiration and for the first time, she feels herself shying away from the reverence. For the first time, she wonders just how far her soul can crack before she loses her grip on duty. How many more innocent people can she kill for the crimes of the few before it invades her sleep completely? She used to enjoy war. Never the killing, but the anticipation, the promise of power and force, it use to awaken inside her. The thrill of conquest making her almost giddy. She was born for war once. But now it just makes her sick.  _Weakness._

A soft smile and gentle laugh dance through her mind and her eyes close to revel in the fleeting moment before she can stop them. It leaves her agitated and angry when she comes out of it, because she doesn’t want to think about just how far her duty will take her. She knows. Visions of Arkadia in waste flash through her mind. The bodies of skaikru litter the ground she stands over. She blinks, chin raising, jaw grinding. _No,_ she thinks. Her feet begin moving again and she’s walking, hands clasped tight behind her back.

“Heda! Heda!”

She turns, eyes wide, nostrils flaring. Her body buzzes in anticipation as her general runs to her, panting and urgent.

“A message from Skaikru. Their leader, Chancellor Pike, would like to discuss a peace agreement.”

Here eyes flash, angry, confused, she’s alight, running across the ground back to the site overlooking Arkadia. She freezes when she sees movements inside the wall. A group of Skaikru stand within the gates, Pike, Bellamy, Octavia, familiar faces and hoards of unfamiliar ones. She squints, searching, and then her heart thuds heavily when she finds her, _Clarke._

 

“Heda, what is your decision?”

She paces, one hand on the hilt of her sword, the other by her side in a fist. Her steps are heavy, erratic. She growls. “They want to _talk_?”

“Sha, Heda. The message came straight from Clarke kom Skakru. Their leader wishes to speak with you about peace.”

Her jaw grinds roughly as she turns back to her pacing, body tense, snapping this way and that in sharp, ferocious cuts. _What are you doing, Clarke?_

 

//

 

“What’s taking so long?” Pike barks.

Clarke eyes him, her chest rising and falling quickly. She presses her nails into her palms and forces air out her nose, hoping the nerves flooding through her will not betray them or their plan. She peers across the expanse of field, still littered with Lexa’s slaughtered army, into the tree-line, eyes searching. It’s too far away to see anything, but if she could just spot her, sense her, even…

Octavia turns to look at her, and she avoids the glance. _She’ll know,_ she assures herself. _She’ll know, she’ll know, she’ll know._

“There! Look!”

Her head whips up at Hannah Green’s voice, her arm stretching out to the field as a figure appears, flanked by two.

“It’s the commander,” Bellamy observes. Clarke thinks she can hear nerves in his voice, but when she turns to look at him, he nods assuredly.

 _This will work,_ she tells herself, _it has to._

“Open the gates!” She commands. The men stare at her blankly until Pike nods and gives them confirmation.

Parting like a wave as the gates close behind them, the blockade dissipates to the sides, revealing Lexa and two guards, an irrationally imposing presence for it being only three people. As her eyes land on her face, relief is only followed by the fear that floods through her as she struggles to step forward.

Lexa’s eyes flit back and forth between the different faces and Clarke can tell that she is studying, calculating, forming plans and decisions long before anything happens. _Look at me. Just look at me._ She tries desperately to catch her eye, to convey the plan, to beg her to play along.

The commander settles on Pike, her face unreadable, but to Clarke. To Clarke, she is transparent. She’s confused, and angry, she can see it in the bulge of her jaw, the creasing of her brow. The way those green eyes flash with something lethal, but restrained.  

Finally, _finally,_ her eyes go to Clarke. “What is this?” Her tone seethes into her, chilling her and she sinks. _She doesn’t know_.

Pike takes a step forward and Clarke lurches. Her eyes are wide, heart slamming into her sternum as the rushing blood in her ears casts the whole moment in a haze she feels she’s drowning in.

“This is the meeting your requested, _Commander._ ”

She can just make out Pike’s words as her eyes frantically beg for Lexa’s attention. _Look at me!_

“I have not—“ the commander starts and stops, and Clarke feels herself fall, her eyes closing as everything seems to slow down around her. She feels her people stiffen, feels Pike and his people swell. The air grows silent and still, tossed into limbo as her eyes flutter back open.

She finds Lexa’s face and she sees it. She sees everything click into lost green eyes. She sees the moment Lexa realizes her mistake, then realizes it’s too late. Then it’s chaos. Yells and gunshots pierce through the air as an elbow connects with the side of her head and she’s falling, hands cracking hard against the mud as she catches herself. Her vision swims, a kaleidoscope of guns and swords and fists and yelling spinning around her.

Hannah falls first, her unseeing eyes looking up at Clarke from the ground. Then a man she doesn’t know, but remembers being on Pike’s left arm. She pushes to her hands and knees, spitting out blood, swaying as she reaches for her gun a few paces in front of her. When Octavia falls, she screams out her name, but then the girl is pushing herself up and yanking Clarke up with her.

She scans desperately, eyes falling to each face, Bellamy, Kane, Abby, checking, prioritizing. She feels Octavia lunge towards someone with Pike just as Bellamy overtakes the man he’d been grappling with. A bullet screams past her ear and that’s when she realizes there are arrows flying towards her and bullets flying past her. They’re being shot at and Pike’s men are shooting at the tree-line. _What has she done?_ Her eyes fall back to Kane and that’s when she sees the arrow in his side that her mother is laboring over, flinching against the screams of the bullets and arrows that dirty the air.  

Something sharp slices across her cheek and she falls with the force of it. The hand she pulls from her face is covered in blood and she goes limp, eyes straining to focus. Her minds swims in a fleeting flash of green eyes and that’s when it hits her. _Lexa._ She looks around frantically until she finds her sparring with Pike. She crawls towards her in a daze, vaguely processing the chaos around her. She freezes when Pike’s large fist slams into Lexa’s cheek and the commander falls.

She hears someone scream Lexa’s name, loud and shrill and terrified. Then she realizes it’s her, she screaming and she can’t stop. Movement out of the corner of her eye stills her and when she turns to look, she reels, her blood freezing as it pumps through her.

Warriors are spilling out of the trees, rushing towards their fallen commander, but by the time she looks back, Lexa is straddling Pike, her dagger raised. Clarke can’t watch, but she hears it. She hears the way it plunges into his neck and she’s transported back to Atom, back to Finn, back to every body she’d ever killed. There are tears in her eyes as time falls apart around her.

She hears her name, it grows louder until she’s being jerked up by the arms and shuffled back past Pike’s men who are still standing and showering bullets towards the charging army. The sounds of hundreds of warriors thundering across the field shake the air around them as she tries to keep up with Bellamy as he pulls her away towards the gates.

“Wait—“ she’s frantic, mind struggling to remember something. It hits her and she digs in—“Bellamy, wait!” She stumbles, her breath catching as she turns, searching for Lexa. When she sees her, nothing can keep her back. She twists out of Bellamy’s grip and surges towards the gates.

 

//

 

Lexa feels it everywhere. Every running step throbs through her as she races to meet her charging army, hands in the air, screaming commands to stop that get lost in the sounds of their thunderous approach. “Hod op! Hod up!” She ducks and flinches against arrows that fly past and the bullets that follow her. They’re blind, blind with the violence and vengeance she had instilled in them. The pack aggression has overcome even her command, her presence. She knows it, was warned of it, studied it for years under Titus’ war tactic teachings. _Never let the pack loose unless you are at the healm. They will always be thirsty for blood in your honor, Leksa._ Titus rings in her ears, and yet it was here, her blood thirsty pack, plunging towards her at an alarming rate. She’s powerless as her voice cracks, commands lost in the ground they have yet to cover.

She looks behind her and her feet falter. _Clarke._ Her eyes surge wide as she sees Clarke stumble out of the gates, screaming her name. _No, no, no_ her mind pitches and she turns, waving desperately at Clarke to go back inside the gates. Her warriors are still too far away to hear, though she knows they might not stop regardless. They run with purposeful feet and angry swords. She screams uselessly in both directions, though she knows she must choose.

Willing her body to keep going, she pushes off the ground towards Clarke, boots pounding into the mud, leaping over bodies of her fallen still rotting away, and it’s just _so much._ Tears blind her and she wipes angrily at them, needing to see, needing to run, needing to reach. Reach Clarke.

“Clarke! Go back! Go back!”

She’s close enough to see the defiance in Clarke’s face. Close enough to see the resolve, the stubbornness. She’s so close to her now, can make out every cut on her face, the curve of her lips, the tears on her cheeks. She’s running, gaining, reaching.

Then she’s falling with a yelp, fire in her stomach as she collapses forward, eyes wide and breathing stunted. She’s in Clarke’s arms before she hits the ground and then they’re falling together, Clarke stumbling under her weight.  

“Stop shooting! Stop shooting Stop--!” She hears Clarke’s voice crack and she aches for her. _It’s ok, Clarke. Do not be afraid._ But her tongue is thick with metallic and her head is heavy on Clarke’s chest.

There are arrows in the shooters’ chests before Clarke can finish her desperate commands and then the thundering stops. She knows her army has stalled, can feel their eyes on her. She wants to push up, wants to stand before them and declare an end. Wants to instate _jus drein no jus daun_ once and for all.

But Clarke’s heartbeat is in her ear, lulling her, letting her slip into a space of no pain, no duty, just easy, warm, light.

“Hey. Lexa—“ Clarke’s voice is soft in her ears. “Lexa—hey. Hey! Don’t, do that. Don’t give up on me—“

She blinks hard, staving off the black that waits at the corners of her eyes. “I’m not,” she whispers. She whimpers when she’s jostled, feels Clarke’s arms tighten around her and hold her close when her general’s face swims into view and goes to pick her up. Clarke is crying, pushing him away and she feels helpless. Calm, serene even, but helpless.

“Clarke.” The girl stills and bores into her, eyes wet and pleading. “Death is not the end. It’s ok, Clarke. Do not be afraid.”

“I _am_ afraid,” Clarke cries.

It hurts. When her general raises her from Clarke’s arm, her head swims and her throat catches at the surge of fire that ripples thorugh her stomach. But then Clarke is there, a steady hand pressing down on her wound and if she stretches, she can see her profile, furrowed and dirty, but beautiful.

 

//

 

As Clarke talks to her mother in hushed voices, she can see Lexa continuing to come in and out of consciousness. She smiles slightly at her strength, at her resolve to stay here with her, but it fades when the rest of reality swarms in and she forces her attention back to her mother.

“But she’ll be ok?”

“We got the bullet out, and stopped the bleeding fairly quickly. A bullet to that area is relatively low risk if attended to quickly. She should be on her feet again soon if she rests.”

She can see the questions in her mother’s eyes even as Abby slips into doctor mode, but she just doesn’t have the energy to explain. Can’t possibly articulate the reasons she had frantically grabbed her mother and dragged her to Lexa’s side. Can’t possibly pour forth the the emotions swirling around inside her in a coherent way. All Abby knows is that the commander was dying and Clarke needed her help—Clarke knows her mother will think what she thinks until she doesn’t and for her, that has to be fine for now, because Lexa is breathing. Lexa is alive.

 _Lexa is alive,_ she repeats it to herself, glancing back over to the commander on the table, solidifying the notion. Her head hurts and her cheek stings, but more than anything she can’t stop trembling. Like every piece of her is firing in different directions—sad, angry, relieved, afraid. She takes a step towards her, thinking that perhaps touch will ground her. Lexa's usually does. 

“You should wash up, Clarke.”  Clarke pauses and looks to her soiled hands, black with Lexa’s blood. She curls them into fists, trying to hide the evidence as if it will erase the last hour. Her eyes trail back to Lexa.

Reading her with an aptness that sometimes infuriates Clarke, sometimes relieves her, Abby places her hand on her shoulder. “I’ll stay with her. Go wash up.”

She considers it. She really does, for a moment at least, but she can't make herself leave. Not yet. “Can you just bring me a bowl of water?”

Abby doesn’t argue. Clarke can see that she wants to, but she doesn’t. Clarke smiles, strained but genuine, letting her mother wrap her in a tentative hug before leaving for a bowl. 

Her hand brushes tentatively over Lexa's warm head, her thumb tracing the fading outline of her warpaint. She should look small and frail. Child-like even, limp and prone on the table. But she doesn't. She looks strong, lean, her powerful limbs at rest but mighty never the less. She glides two fingers down an arm that swells with subtle muscles and tries to remember what it felt like to be in them, just a week ago. She can't. Not exactly, not  _enough._

Her fingers settle around Lexa's wrist before she brings her hand to her mouth. She reverently kisses each knuckle, lingering on each bruised point, not wanting to break the connection. It's Lexa she's trying to comfort, but she knows she is the one being soothed. Her head falls to the curled hand in hers, her stomach flipping with guilt. She takes and takes and takes it seems, and when she's done taking, she destroys.

"Clarke." She whips around to find Bellamy in the doorway, his face bloodied and bruised. Her stomach does another flip and she tries to tell herself that at least they're all alive. "We need you in the mess hall for the election." 

She nods, but doesn't move except to return her gaze to Lexa. She studies her face, committing every curve and crease to memory, preparing herself to pull away. "I'm sorry," she whispers. She stands and presses kiss to Lexa's forehead. A kiss that starts from her toes and surges through her, collecting all of the pain and trembling and unspoken guilt and promises she let steep inside her. It's gentle but earnest, languid. She can feel Bellamy shifting behind her, and she knows they need to go. She stroke's Lexa's head in farewell and joins Bellamy. They walk out of the medical bay silently, and she pauses, turning to Lexa's general. "Please stay with her." He nods and she takes one last glance back through the door. 

"C'mon, Clarke. She'll be ok. This is what both of our peoples need." Bellamy gives her an encouraging nod and she forces herself to accept it. 

"Just dreain no jus daun," she mutters. "Peace." 


End file.
